The Spectrum of Light
by Corvus no Genmu
Summary: The difference between heroes and villains is defined by a line of gray separating fields of white and black. Their views forever firm in their world of good and evil. Except for the one who sees in the full spectrum of life... and death... Slight AU
1. First Impressions

A/N: This story will be AU starting roughly around the beginning of the first season but will continue to go beyond them. There will be mentioning of certain events that transpire outside of Farbe-Tier's direct influence, as I will not rewrite events that are unchanged and/or occur without Farbe-Tier's... help... in said events. Please Read-&-Review.

DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.

* * *

**The Spectrum of Light**

By Corvus no Genmu

00: First Impressions

White gloved hands tapped the crystalline glass class, fingers playing to an unheard rhythm while the gemstones and precious metals beneath sparkled like stars. "Shiny." A tap of a finger and a few words whispered on an unfelt wind and glass returned once more to sand. "I'll take them." With the store's owners well into dreamland, courtesy of some… borrowed… equipment from his last escapade into Gotham; the would-be jewel collector was very precocious with his selection.

Oh he didn't follow any set theme like most villains were want to do, really if there was one thing he hated it was _repetition_, and though he possessed no clear eye for jewelry, if it had enough shine to it, it certainly got his attention, but he _did_ have an eye for work worth taking.

He held up a gold ring and scowled at it before glancing down at the sign. "Girmaunt? More like Girmaunt's sick bastard cousin! The welding on this could be used for a backscratcher." He tossed the ring aside and picked up another. "Hmm… gaudy… Too gaudy." He scowled, his German accent growing thicker. "Lehrlingsarbeit!" He tossed it away, shooting a dark look at the unconscious owner of the so-called "upper class" jewelry store. "I'd fire your procurer if I were you."

The thief glanced down at the other tray and slowly started to smile. "Now _this_ is more like it…" He plucked a tiny gold ring and gazed upon it with pure adoration. It was fashioned in the shape of intertwining vines with tiny flowers sprouting from them. A serpentine tongue tasted the air. "Sehr gut…"

Several inspections and one large jewelry case later and he was out the door with a satisfied smile on his face. Out in the light of the early morning, one could at last take his full appearance into account and it was by no means a normal one, even for the common villain of Jump City. Dressed in the stereotypical style of Victorian steampunk, minus the actual tech, the boy, who could only be midway through his teens at best, looked like he stepped out of the pages of a fantasy novel. Dressed in shades of grey and black, the only true color on him was his hair, which was a vibrant shade of orange from what one could see as only a few small clumps of it were sticking out beneath the wide rim of his moderately sized top hat, which beheld a playing card in its rim, the joker to be precise.

The thief paused and glanced up and down the empty sidewalk. "Well… that is never a good sign… I guess that means it's time to play…" He glanced up atop the building across the street where five heroes stood with the sun shining at their back. "Wouldn't you say?"

"More like it's time for your penalty game." The leader of the Teen Titans and former protégé to the world's greatest detective, Robin was nothing but serious. "Ten years sounds about right."

"Ten—For an even dozen pieces of jewelry?" The thief shook his head, lifting up the latch of the case to show that he did in fact only steal a small handful of rings and a few necklaces. "I don't think so."

The green-skinned changeling known as Beast Boy could help the dumbfounded stare that was matched by most of the team. "Dude, what kind bad guy are you?"

"Bad guy? I'd like to think I'm a new kind of player in this game of heroes and villains." The thief closed the case with a snap and placed it within the large cuff of his sleeve before revealing an empty pair of hands with sleeves occupied only by his arms. His smile grew with their surprise. "In point of fact, call me the world's first true wild card! I do what I want when I want to, and right now, I want to kick your sorry asses for getting in my way!" A faint splash of red appeared at the tips of the thief's otherwise vibrantly orange hair and disappeared just as quickly.

"Titans, Go!" Robin dived down at the thief; his bo staff at the ready only to suddenly find himself without an enemy as the thief twirled past him, moving lightly on his toes before leaping past a lunging green tiger and rolling beneath a sonic energy blast. The thief ran up to Cyborg, a strange smile on his face as he grabbed the metal Titan by the arm. "Nice gun! I think I'll take it!"

"Wha—HEY!" Easier than Cyborg thought possible, considering the amount of safeties and securities he had installed the last time someone body snatched his parts, the thief had yoinked his arm right off. It was all the more humiliating as the thief actually had the gall to yell out a loud "YOINK!" as he took off with the robotic limb. "Gimme back with my arm ya fruitcake!"

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Black light enveloped the limb and would have torn it free from the thief's grip had not something strange happened, at least to the purple-haired spell caster.

"Mine!" Orange energy sparked and Raven's hold on Cyborg's arm vanished with the sound of shattering glass. The thief turned a heated glare at her, his hair still sparking underneath his hat. "No take backs! I took it fair and—Gott im Himmel!" The thief fell back flat on his behind as a star bolt flew where his head would have been. He rolled quickly, dodging the storm of birdarangs and jumped to his feet just in time to come face to face with a snarling green grizzly. "Well isn't this— Oh my god, what the hell is that?"

It wouldn't be until several months later that Cyborg would let Beast Boy live down the fact that he had fallen for what had to be the oldest, if not the stupidest, trick in the book.

The thief was just feet away from vanishing down one of Jump City's numerous back-alleys when a blue-cloaked form appeared out of the shadows, a pale hand enveloped in black magic. Raven's eyes were narrowed and the thief realized that while she had been surprised that he was able to break her hold on objects, at least those in his grasp, she knew a direct blast would do a lot more lasting damage and by the look in her eye she was sorely tempted to do just that.

The thief gulped and started to slowly back away before he felt the cold steel of Robin's bo pushing against the small of his back.

"Drop the hand and raise 'em up."

The thief frowned and looked between the arm, the Titans (including one seriously P. Cyborg), to the arm again before sighing. "Fine… I don't like modern technology anyway…" The thief suddenly smirked, his forelocks suddenly bristling. It wasn't as sudden as one of Beast Boy's transformations but it wasn't slow enough to not be startling to the Titans for standing in the thief's place was a monster straight out of legend.

Reaching well over sixty-feet in length, the thief was now in the body of what could, at first glance, be called a massive orange-scaled snake with stripes of faint red, but the crest of white feathers at his forehead and the crown of black horns upon his brow spoke of something much deadlier. However, of the gathered Titans only Raven was able to recognize the creature for what it was and so was able to keep her eyes away from the monster's own.

Being eighty-percent machine, Cyborg's systems remained in perfect condition but the human portions of his body froze like ice, his one human eye with wide sudden terror. The lenses of his mask were not particularly special, almost a set standard in their line of work, but they were unique enough to grant Robin a similar fate to his cybertronic friend.

Beast Boy and Starfire were not as fortunate for they are not as well-informed in the supernatural as Raven, and their eyes had no protection like Robin's nor were they blessed, or cursed, with an unnatural eye like Cyborg. Because of their severe lack of such things, they received the full power of the eyes and so fell to their terrible power.

They had been turned into stone.

Raven kept her head bowed and her face clear of all emotion though there was a faint flicker of black energy dancing between the nearby lampposts.

"**_They won't die._**" A pause. "**_Well, not today or because of me at any rate…_**" She heard massive coils shifting, the tip of the monster's tail appeared and lightly pushed against her chin but she resisted the motions. "**_Why do you not look at me?_**"

"… I may not know who you are but I do know _what_ you are…"

"**_Truly?_**" A hissing laugh and she heard the beast shifting, circling around her and her friends. "**_Tell me then… just what am I?_**"

She almost looked up to see if he was actually being serious and though it was almost in her nature to be condescending to anyone who asked what constituted as a stupid question, which was nearly any kind of question that involved her opinion in some way, she resisted the urge and remained respectful as she could. "A basilisk…"

A soft hissing laugh. "**_Well… at the moment, yes but not always… Besides if you've read your lore as I'm sure you have, you know that nothing short of the Serpent's Tongue could allow one to hear a basilisk's voice._**" Coils shifted, a monstrous form rising high above her, glaring down with discolored eyes. "**_I might share the form, the power, but I am no mere basilisk._**"

Realizing she wasn't truly getting anywhere, Raven decided to get straight to the point, at least as much as she dared with him. "What do I have to do to cure my friends from your eyes?"

"**_Do…? What do you think that you could possibly do? Together you might be assured in victory but you are merely a small piece of a broken puzzle. But you know that already don't you?_**" The basilisk continued his slow circling around the frozen Titans, his eyes, white iris with black sclera, never leaving the stiff-shouldered Raven, tasting her fear and surprise, sweet and sour on his forked tongue. "**_However… as I said I am a wild card, not a villain or a hero… I will break the spell my eyes have cast upon them… for a price… I want something, Little Blackbird… something worth the lives of your friends…_**"

"What do you want?" growled Raven. The basilisk's tail appeared but did not reach for her face, instead reaching up to the hem of her hood, lightly stroking the soft material.

"**_That… is a very nice cloak…_**" Raven's eyes grew comically wide. He could ask her for anything and if it were in her power she would gladly have granted it to him, but all he wanted was her cloak? Just who was he? The tail paused and she realized that she had spoken the question aloud. "**_My name is of no consequence but if you must refer to me as _**something**_… Call me, Farbe-Tier. Simple and to the point to be sure but really, considering the names you lot share I'd like to think its originality is sound if only by the language its spoken in. Now then, do we have a bargain? The cloak for your friends?_**"

"… Fine, take it." Raven unclasped the cloak and tossed it up into the air, still keeping her eyes firmly on the ground. She heard it being snatched out of the air and the pop of air being displaced, a sudden large form shrinking down in the blink of an eye. She cautiously started to glance up only to fall back in surprise as Cyborg's stolen arm was thrown straight at her face. As she recovered from the sudden shock, fumbling rather disgracefully with the mechanical limb, Raven heard the sound of footsteps echoing from the nearby alleyway, laughter echoing from the shadows.

* * *

The Catacombs of Jump City deserved the capitalization in its name for while it was a pale second to the more famous, or perhaps even infamous, Catacombs scattered about the world. It wasn't built for burial like the one in Rome nor did it contain the frighteningly morbid decorations like its sister in Paris but it did share the same core responsibility as them.

Protection.

The thing about cities, particularly ones large enough to be called a… metropolis of sorts, is that they always have a vast underground system of pipes and tunnels that are always changing, always evolving into something bigger, wilder, and all the more terrifying for even the best of navigators can become lost inside a labyrinth with no enchanted thread to find the way back toward the light of day.

Even Farbe-Tier, who claimed the vast underground as his personal domain and had it marked appropriately with several arcane and mysterious sigils, had a hard time finding his way back toward "Home".

"Okay, I took a left, a right, two more lefts, down a shaft, through an old waterway, and down a rusty ladder so I should be… Somewhere… Why did I decide to make my home in the underground?" Farbe-Tier took his top hat off and scratched an itch at the top of his head where orange hair was fading to natural blonde. "Hmmm…"

"_Are you lost again?_" A soft voice, like scented smoke on the winds echoed in the otherwise silent tunnel.

Farbe-Tier chuckled glancing around with a small smile on his face. "C'mon, it's not like we've been living here for long. Stop teasing me and come out."

Sandy-colored smoke slowly swirled before Fabre-Tier before the smoke condensed tightly and became more solid and defined in the shape of a young teenage girl that, though she herself was colored in shades of the smoke, one could clearly see the blonde of her hair and the blue of her eyes. She was dressed a leather like bodysuit with a trench coat that made her look more serious than she truly was. She smiled and flew down and embraced Farbe-Tier, pressing her face against his neck.

"Oof!" Farbe-Tier grunted in surprise at the sudden show of affection and stared down at her in confusion before he took notice of the quiver in her shoulders, the tightness of her embrace. A small splotch of indigo appeared in his hair, dead center of the blonde before it was overwhelmed and gone as quickly as it came. "Hey now… I thought we were over this already…"

"_Sorry…_" She tried to pull away but his arms wouldn't let her.

"Do you want me to say it again?" Stillness than a shy nod. He chuckled, a hand reaching up to stroke wisps of blonde hair that fluttered like smoke under his gentle caress. "I promise you, I'm not going to leave you alone in the dark, not now not ever. That is my promise to you, Little Sister…"

* * *

Raven stood before her frozen friends with her usual neutral mask in place once more, a new cloak resting on her shoulders to replace the one she traded for the lives of her friends. Fearful of what a long flight across the city and over water might do to them, Raven had teleported them straight to Titans Tower and had carefully placed them to stand before the window of the common room that overlooked the ocean where the shining disk that was the sun slowly began to fall. She placed Cyborg's stolen arm on the table and glanced over her shoulder to see the sun slowly beginning to vanish on the horizon.

"GIANT SNAKE!" Beast Boy's girlish scream had Raven fly right out of her cloak. The green changeling blinked and looked around in confusion. "Uh… when did we get back to the Tower?"

"I do not recall…" murmured Starfire, floating in midair to their equally confused leader. "Robin what has happened?"

"I… don't know Star…"

"Oh man, if I have to replace another arm so help me—Hey there it is!" Cyborg quickly snatched up his arm.

"You're alright… Thank Azar…" Raven sighed.

"Raven? What happened?" asked Robin.

"Yeah, last thing I remember was seeing a mondo huge snake-thing and then—WHOOSH—I'm here… and it's nighttime now… Ah, man! I missed all my afternoon 'toons!" whined Beast Boy.

Raven sighed, not really surprised by Beast Boy's immaturity but secretly glad that he and Starfire will both alive and well. As for herself, that would remain to be seen as soon as she finished explaining what had happened to Robin. It was highly doubtful that Robin would be happy about the choice she made.

_One long, deadpan told recap later…_

"You let him go!"

Raven's hair blew back from the force of Robin's yelling but her face remained impassive as always. "To save your lives, yes. Yes I did." She took a sip from her teacup. "You and Cyborg might have merely been paralyzed but Beast Boy and Starfire were turned to _stone_ and I know of no spell or enchantment strong enough to break the curse of a basilisk's full gaze, however different it might be from the norm."

Robin winced, not liking her choice of words; still he had to give her credit on that. Scattered about the common room of Titans Tower, the other Titans were dealing with the experience in their own ways. Starfire was busy distracting herself making another Tamaranian dish that'd likely crawl away as she paid only half-a-mind to its creation. Cyborg was sitting at the couch, grumbling angrily to himself as he set about reattaching his arm, which seemed to almost be fighting with him.

From where he sat on the opposite side of the table across from Raven with a dish of untouched tofu, Beast Boy raised a hand. "Ah… Basi-whatisit?"

"Basilisk," repeated Raven.

"Like in Harry Potter?"

"… Yes, Beast Boy… like in Harry Potter."

"Sweet!" Beast Boy's elfin ears suddenly dropped, his face turning an interesting shade of mint. "Wait, not sweet. Totally not sweet!" He blinked. "Wait, uh… shouldn't Starfire and I technically be—"

"Finish that sentence, Grass-stain and I'll throw out all of your tunes." Cyborg growled, still working on reattaching his arm. "Man what did that little steam-punk do to my—There we go! … Wait, what the heck?" At long last, his arm was reattached but from the way that Cyborg was looking at it, something was amiss. "How did—When did—That better buff out!"

"Is there something amiss with your arm, Friend Cyborg?" asked Starfire, looking away from her bowl of… something… which then took the opportunity to try and flee into the safety of the fridge only to be stabbed with a fork and dragged back to the bowl by the Tamaranian.

"I don't know when or how but that little punk went and branded my arm!" Cyborg held out his arm to reveal a strange burnt marking on the underside of the forearm. The mark consisted of a circle with four dash-marks at its "corners" with a small V at its top. Robin's eyes narrowed but he did not recognize it as any kind of gang marking he was familiar with. He shot a glance at Raven whose gaze was more intense.

"Raven? Do you know that mark?"

"No… but I feel that I should…"

* * *

"Well, well… If this isn't an interesting turn of events…" Gears turned slowly in the darkness, moving massive machinery to their work and though the noise should be loud and grating, the machines moved with eerie silence. The screen all paused on the same image, a boy dressed in Victorian wear straight from the pages of fantastical science. Another screen lit up, each taking an item from the boy's choice of clothes and imposing it upon another person. "Very interesting…"

"Sir? The weather anomaly you've been expecting is to arrive by tomorrow evening…" There was a touch of sarcasm in that old voice, a firm disbelief in the accuracy of a weatherman. Thin eyes spared a glance at the screen, widening in surprise. "Is that—"

"Someone of little importance or consequence. For now, I'll allow him to do as he will. As he's stated, he has little reason or justification for wanting anything grandiose. Besides, he knows what I would do to him should he appear before me, for or against." A muscular form rose from his throne, his lone eye glaring with cool intensity at his manservant. "Is that clear enough for you, Wintergreen?"

"… Transparently, sir."

_

* * *

To Be Continued..._

**

* * *

On the next wavelength…  
**

_A Touch of Compassion  
_


	2. A Touch of Compassion

DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.

* * *

**The Spectrum of Light**

By Corvus no Genmu

01: A Touch of Compassion

Three weeks had passed since the Titans first encounter with the character known simply as Farbe-Tier. In that time, Farbe-Tier had proven that he was, if nothing else, a big pain in the ass towards the Titans and a near constant headache for their stoplight-colored leader. True to his ideals, Farbe-Tier made it a particular point to never rob from the same place twice but worse yet, he never seemed to steal anything of huge quantity and the newspapers had started to nickname him the Quality Thief for what he did steal was of great value and rarity.

Unless it was cash then it was anyone's guess as to how much Farbe-Tier would steal.

However… whenever Farbe-Tier's heists involved money, large or small quantities, there would always be a sudden donation of near equal size to a charity of some sort the following day. Most would have written it off as coincidence but not Robin. He knew that, for whatever reason, Farbe-Tier was acting like a modern-day Robin Hood if only in concerns to actual money. Having apprenticed with the World's Greatest Detective, the Boy Wonder had thought he had seen them all.

Obviously he hadn't.

Farbe-Tier was a thief, a criminal, but while he did steal the occasional rare item, be it something as extravagant as fine jewelry or an old and dusty tome, whenever he stole money he'd go and give most of it away as donation to a hospital or something of the sort. Not that Robin could actually prove it but if there was but one thing that Robin refused to even acknowledge it was coincidence.

If Robin could actually fight Farbe-Tier he could get a better read on him, the best way to figure a person out was to see how they fought at least in Robin's opinion, but Farbe-Tier was proving his intelligence over the everyday villain by making it a special point to disappear shortly before the Titans could arrive. In point of fact, it was only thanks to eye-witness accounts that Farbe-Tier was even suspected of the crimes in the first place and even those accounts were sketchy at best as his appearance seemed to change, if only slightly, with each new crime.

Realizing perhaps innately that Robin was going to go nuts over Farbe-Tier like he was over Slade, the rest of the Titans opted a trip to the carnival was in order. Robin had wanted to veto that plan and would have brought up several good reasons as to why going would be a waste of time better spent toward training and researching when Starfire had flown up to him, her eyes shining with childish wonder as she proclaimed no knowledge of any such festivities as a carnival and would very much like to go and partake in them.

Robin folded in under two-tenths of a second.

* * *

"Du stehst nun vor mir und wir beide fangen an zu weinen… Es war kein wunder, den es wurde uns schon prophezeit… Dass unsere wege sich im leben irgendwann mal teilen… Wir warden un simmer lieben, danke für die schöne zeit…" Farbe-Tier sung softly to himself as he gazed upwards at the stars, his feet dangling over the edge of the pier as the waves gently lapped at the sandy shore as the carnival continued on with its festivities behind him.

"_It sounds beautiful… but what does it mean?_" Sitting beside him, her form mostly ethereal and unseen to untrained eyes, was the young girl he called little sister but to the rest of the world she was…a secret…

"A lot of things really… It's one of the few good things from my past…" Farbe-Tier glanced down at the water below, watching the rippling reflection of the moon. He wasn't dressed in his standard "uniform" but in a simple pair of jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt that had a fanged smiley-face over the chest. Instead of his usual top-hat, he wore a large bucket-hat that shadowed his sunglass-less eyes and allowed only a few faint blue locks to fall past his eyes.

Spotting a strange twinkling light, he turned his eyes once more to the heavens just in time to see one particular star was moving with great speed and had a faint violet tint to its glow. He reached out with his senses and nearly felt his heart shatter from the force. As it was, he nearly fell off the pier.

"_Farbe!_" Soft hands pulled him back and steadied him. "_Are you okay? What happened?_"

"I—I'm fine…" Farbe-Tier took a deep lungful of air. "I just—I wasn't expecting so much…"

"_So much what?_"

"… Never mind it's—" A roar of rockets and something that vaguely resembled a squid shot by overhead, on a direct course for the Ferris wheel. Farbe-Tier's eyes narrowed at a familiar cry that soon followed. "Time to go."

* * *

Blackfire glared down at the floor of her cell, her almond-shaped eyes narrowed and her fists clenched tight. Though it looked like she was angry, perhaps even uncaring of her fate, inside she was a trembling wreck. The Centauri officers had disabled her armor and thanks to her admittedly poorly thought-out plan of masquerading as her sister just hours ago, she had enough solar energy to last for several days yet but once she got to the Centauri prison…

This time, Blackfire could not hold back a shiver at the idea of the Centauri prison. While it is not one of the worst prisons to exist in the galaxy and were she a normal Tamaranean, Blackfire could grin and bear it until she devised a way to escape and take revenge against her sister for sending her to a prison in the depths of the Centauri Empire without so much as a second-thought as to the consequences, the fate she was leaving for her sister.

But as much as she loathed to admit it with every fiber of her being… Blackfire was _not_ a normal Tamaranean… and if the Centauri followed their standard protocol with prisoners she wouldn't be living one either.

She glanced up as sirens blared all across the ship which was shaking from some tremendous force. She glanced out the porthole window beside her and saw a glimpse of shining blue feathers bigger than she was tall fly past on wings large enough to embrace the ship with room to spare. A tremendous crash and the roar of flames and suddenly the wall beside her was gone, melted away with blazing power. Another burst of firepower and Blackfire screamed in agony, gripping her bleeding arm close, cowering back from the monster that gazed at her with sad eyes.

"**_Don't be afraid…_**" Blazing blue wings spread wide, fire surrounding them both. "**_All will be well._**"

* * *

Blackfire's eyes slowly flickered open and she groaned, wincing at the sharp light shining down from the ceiling above her. She turned her face away and blearily looked up into a pair of reflective spectacles.

"… Hello…."

"… AAAAH…!"

To his credit, Farbe-Tier did _not_ scream like a little girl and managed a graceful fall to his behind off the chair. He glanced up before turning looking away as Blackfire sat up in the bed and glared at him, her eyes barely flickering with purple-tinted energy.

"Who are you? Where am I? … And why do you not look at me?"

Never let it be said that Blackfire's ego was small, particularly when she's in a bad mood.

Farbe-Tier eased himself back onto the recliner, still looking away from her. "Well… in order, you can think of me as a friend. Currently you are in my bed which is in my room which is in my home. Lastly… it's a bit drafty in here wouldn't you say?"

Blackfire blinked and glanced down and her face turned an interesting shade of orange before she glared at Farbe-Tier with an expression that could be either anger or embarrassment, perhaps even a mix of the two. "You little creep…" She hissed, pulling the blanket up to cover her bare chest. "How dare you undress me?"

"I have no regrets; it was either the armor or your life. I'd like to think I made the better choice." Farbe-Tier stated, looking Blackfire eye to… sunglasses…

"My armor…? What happened to my armor?"

Farbe-Tier did not answer immediately, instead grabbing Blackfire by the wrist and pulling her left arm forward with strength that surprised the Tamaranean princess. He was looking at the bandages that were wrapped tightly around her forearm, noting that they still appeared fresh and white. "Danken Gott… The bleeding stopped." Farbe-Tier released her arm which Blackfire rubbed (not nervously it was itchy that was all!) and earned another glare from the alien, this one fierce with anger and clouded with suspicion.

"I'm sorry… but to make sure those officers didn't try to seek you out again, I had to make sure that they thought you dead, not rescued by your sister or her friends."

Blackfire couldn't help but scoff at that. "Starfire? Rescue _me_? She was the one who wanted me to go to prison in the first place!"

"For what you've done, of course she'd want you punished for it but had she known the fate awaiting you I'm sure she'd have done everything in her power to save you."

Blackfire did not look appeased by this. In fact, she looked even angrier. "What do you know about Starfire or about me? You don't know _anything_!"

"I know that three days ago, when you first arrived on this planet, you were afraid."

The look Blackfire gave to Farbe-Tier would have killed lesser-men, and that was without the aid of her starbolts. "I fear _nothing_."

"You feared for your life." Farbe-Tier answered right back. "Enough to go to the one person you knew, if only subconsciously, would care enough about you to protect you."

"Ha! You think that's why I came here? To seek protection from my _little sister_? You really are an idiot, human."

"Am I? You stole that gemstone for yourself didn't you? Then tell me, why did you allow Starfire to have it?" He asked her.

"I was trying to frame her!" growled Blackfire.

"For the crime," agreed Farbe-Tier, "but then… giving her the gem would have made it moot wouldn't it? All that trouble and all you get is nothing but you end up losing _everything_? Seems to me that the real idiot here is you."

Blackfire's fist flew out to punch Farbe-Tier's lights out, or at least all of his teeth, but her hand bounced back against an indigo-tinted force shield that suddenly surrounded the earthling. "Ow! Son of a portkin!"

"… I have no idea what that is but I believe I understand the gist." Farbe-Tier sighed, shaking his head. "I admit that I do not know your sister all that well but from what I've seen of her there hardly an unkind word to be said about her so why? Why do you hate her so much?"

"Why…? WHY? Why do you _think?_" She hissed, still rubbing her sore hand.

"Because everyone loves her… here and on your home planet… but the same can't be said for you can it? Even before you did anything to deserve it, they hated you for something you didn't have any choice or control of."

"Shut up! You don't know me so don't you _dare_ try and pretend otherwise!"

Farbe-Tier didn't argue with her or try to push his point; he knew that she had no listen to really listen to what he had to say. "I'm going to go make us some breakfast alright? I'll be back in a bit. Is there anything you'd like?" She didn't answer him, turning her face away and glaring at the wall. He sighed and rose to his feet and started walking away but paused at the door.

"Before you finish that thought, you can try to leave but the medicine I'm making to help with that cut on your arm won't be ready until tomorrow morning. You are free to leave if you want but this place… is a maze, even to me. I won't be able to find you before your wound ends up infected and I know you're not stupid enough to try and get sick on purpose."

Blackfire didn't answer and he didn't look back to see if she even cared enough to actually listen. He started to close the door behind him when she suddenly spoke up, "Pancakes…"

"Beg pardon?"

She uttered something fierce and foul sounding in her native tongue. "… I said I want pancakes, human."

"Ah, alright then. Blueberry alright or would you prefer plain?" She didn't answer; she was still glaring at the wall though he noted the faint flush to her face as her stomachs growled. "I'll make both then."

* * *

"_Why are you helping her?_"

"Because she needs it, even if she doesn't realize it."

"_But why? She never asked for it! She doesn't deserve your help!_"

"Some would have said the same for you, but that didn't stop me for caring about you little sister."

"_… I hate it when you say the right thing…_"

"It's not the right thing, it's the truth."

"_I guess… but if she hurts you—_"

"She won't. She has her strength still but she is no Superman. I can handle her."

"_Right…_"

"Where are you going?"

"_To restock our medical supplies, I think we're going to need them._"

"Sigh… sisters…"

* * *

"Where is it?" Blackfire suddenly asked Farbe-Tier as he finished picking up the plates that had been licked clean by the alien princess. A stack of well over a dozen pancakes and she had eaten them all within minutes. Guess the rumors of her sister's voracious attitude had a grain of truth.

"Where is what?" Farbe-Tier answered back, no sarcasm in his voice, just pure honesty.

"My armor. I need to see how much of it needs to be repaired."

"Not to criticize the human race, but wouldn't you need technology more advanced than what is commonly found on this planet to fix it?" asked Farbe-Tier.

Blackfire nodded and gave him a positively vindictive look. "Which is why _you_ are going to go and get the parts I need."

"I beg your pardon? What makes you think I'm even capable—"

"You went and… _rescued_… me didn't you?" Blackfire looked almost disgusted with the word, like it left a foul taste in her mouth just by uttering it. "I may not have really read too much of Starfire's transmissions but I think I have an idea as to who, and what, you are."

"Really?" asked Farbe-Tier, smiling with genuine amusement. "Do tell."

"You're that thief, the one calling yourself Farbe-Tier. The only one that's managed to elude capture and defeat, not necessarily in that order." Blackfire smirked. "Nice name by the way."

"Ah, so you speak German then?" asked Farbe-Tier, earning a surprised blink from Blackfire.

"Ger-man?"

"My native tongue. … You are aware that there are several distinct languages on this planet besides English aren't you?"

Blackfire scowled and shook her head. "A planet that doesn't speak in a shared tongue…"

"You say it like it's a bad thing. Are the people on Tamaran so united under a common culture that there is no difference between them no matter the places they dwell or the lives they live?" Blackfire shrugged carelessly and didn't deign to answer. Farbe-Tier turned and started to leave when she suddenly spoke up.

"Don't you have anything I can wear besides this stupid sheet?"

"I'm sure I can find something."

"You better, I still want to see my armor and I refuse to give you a free peep show."

Farbe-Tier rolled his eyes and left the bedroom and dropped the dishes into the sink in his pseudo- kitchen, making a note that the pile would need to be taken care of before it grew to mountainous proportions. Walking back to his room, Farbe-Tier reached into on the sleeves of his coat and pulled out a fluffy white bathrobe. Frowning a bit, he tapped the collar and smiled as white shifted into dark purple before stepping back into his room.

"Here, put this on and I'll take you to your armor." he tossed the robe to Blackfire and turned away from her, keeping his eyes on the wall. He waited until he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around just in time to watch her fist smack painfully against the force-shield once again.

"OW!" Blackfire rubbed her hand in pain. "What in the—"

"Must you keep doing that?" Farbe-Tier reached over and carefully took her hand. "It's only bruised, but I suppose you'd appreciate some ice, ja?"

Blackfire stared at the taller boy incredulously. "I just tried to punch you out and you're asking me if I want _ice?_"

"It'll help with the swelling."

"You—What is—Just why—X'hal forget it! Just take me to my armor!" snapped Blackfire, crossing her arms and turning away from Farbe-Tier.

"As you wish."

_Fifteen minutes and several wrong turns later…_

"When you said this place was a maze I thought you were joking." Blackfire grumbled, glaring at the walls as though they were snickering at her predicament.

"It is annoying sometimes, but it is home." Farbe-Tier turned another corner, the fifth one in as many minutes. "Here we are." He pressed a hand against the wall and stood back as it slowly slid away to reveal a large chamber of which the contents had Blackfire's eyes wide with awe. At first glance it resembled a library with massive shelves nearly overflowing with books but the center of the room was lined with a circle of large glass cases with sparkling jeweled contents of varying size and shape. Farbe-Tier stepped to the side as Blackfire numbly walked forward, her eyes taking in every piece of jewelry that, though of a completely foreign make to her, she knew were incredibly rare and worth just as much as the moon diamond she had stolen.

Eventually, her eyes trailed to the mannequin that served as a stand for her armor and the harmonious music that had been playing in the background of her mind screeched to a halt as she stared open-mouthed at the wreckage that had been her lifeline for most of her life. The legs and right arm of the bio-armor were the only pieces truly undamaged but a good portion of the left side was badly damaged and the left arm was, if she were to guess, nothing but pieces resting on the floor. This was beyond anything she had imagined and Blackfire felt ready to scream and she nearly did when she saw the solarian jewels, the most important pieces of her armor, were missing.

"I placed the jewels over there in case being attached to the armor would do further damage." Farbe-Tier gestured at a nearby stand that was devoid of a glass case where the three dark purple jewels rested on black velvet, cast in the shadows lest they absorb the artificial light of the treasure room.

Blackfire turned and glared liquid death at Farbe-Tier, the whole effect not quite there as her eyes did not glow with the intensity of her rage. "What did you _do_?"

"I saved you and faked your death. Unless you do something to warrant their attention, the Centauri will bother you no more. Your slate has been buffed but it is far from being perfectly clean." Farbe-Tier walked past the fuming Blackfire and lightly touched the damaged shoulder of her armor. "The damage is… extensive… but I know a friend who can repair your armor as good as new."

Shortly after saying that, the remains of the left arm fell to the floor and shattered into more pieces. Farbe-Tier sweat dropped as Blackfire turned her glare up even higher, something that the German-accented youth thought impossible.

"Didn't you say that your people lack the technology to fix it? More than that, what makes you think that _I_ can't?" asked Blackfire.

"In order, I said the human race but my friend isn't exactly human. Truth be told, I'm not sure what he is but he can MacGyver all kinds of tech. As for your capability… well, if you are truly so confident in yourself, you wouldn't be feeling so hopeless right now." He carefully gathered up the pieces and placed them next to the solarian jewels.

Blackfire chose to ignore that last bit and focus on the first, "MacGyver?"

"Ah, it was an old television show in which the main character, MacGyver, could make the most astounding things out of the simplest of objects." Truth be told he had only seen a few episodes but really, who hadn't heard of MacGyver and his impossible skills of gadgetry?

"I… see…" She really didn't but she wasn't about to admit that. "And this friend of yours can repair it?" She asked, wincing as another small piece fell to the floor with a metallic clang. Farbe-Tier was quick to grab it and place it with the rest.

"If anything he'll make it better than it was." Farbe-Tier chuckled to himself, remembering how overly complicated the door system had been before he had managed to talk the man down into using a simple handprint analyzer.

"… What do you want from me?" Farbe-Tier glanced back at Blackfire who refused to meet him in the eyes, her arms crossed underneath her chest and a frown on her pretty face. "You can't have possibly gone through all this trouble out of the "goodness of your heart". No one is that selfless."

"I could argue that and list off several people that fit that description but I know you wouldn't believe me and some of those names would not appease you any either…" Farbe-Tier sighed. He reached up and scratched at his indigo-colored hair, pushing his top hat back a ways. "Alright, there is one thing I want from you, something you haven't given to anyone else."

Blackfire's spine stiffened and she felt a rush of fury flow through her veins at what Farbe-Tier was implying. The young man continued, ignoring the way her hands clenched and how her shoulders trembled. "Your armor will take a few days to repair, so until then you and I will sit down and talk and we will be completely honest with each other. That is what I want from you that you haven't given to anyone else, your true, honest opinion."

Blackfire's mouth dropped open and hit the floor with a loud clang. "That's it? That's all you want?"

"What else could I ask for to satisfy your sense of pride?" He asked back in return.

"But-But you could have asked for anything! Why would you ask for something so-so _stupid_?"

"Is it really so stupid to want to hear your opinion on things?" Farbe-Tier asked her. "If it's too high a price for you, I suppose—"

"And what does _that_ mean?"

"Well, if you're too shy—"

"Shy? _Me_? I am not some little tribble that needs to be coddled! Fine! If that's your price I accept it! Now, help me get back to my room and take my armor in to be repaired! The sooner it's fixed, the less time I have to spend talking to _you_!" With an added disdainful sniff, Blackfire turned on her heel and marched out the door.

"Her room she says…" muttered Farbe-Tier. "Guess it's the couch for me…" He started to follow after her when he suddenly realized something. "Wait a minute, tribbles are_ real_?"

_

* * *

To Be Continued..._

**

* * *

On the next wavelength…  
**

_Road Rage  
_


	3. Road Rage

DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.

* * *

**The Spectrum of Light**

By Corvus no Genmu

02: Road Rage

Blackfire winced as the cool slime-like substance was pressed against the cut of her arm which she, with supreme amounts of hesitation on her part, admitted was a pretty bad wound that'd get worse with her immune system currently shot to hell as it was without her armor supplying her with the standard intake of solar energy the rest of her kind could absorb as easily as breathing. Not for the first time did she curse her existence but unlike those times where she allowed her anger to simmer and stew in her heart, she tried to focus on something within her control and that was getting some answers out the strange human boy currently acting as her doctor.

She knew who he was by name and she had a very good inkling as to what he did with himself but the way he acted, the things he spoke about… Blackfire prided herself as the analytical one of her siblings, but even she could not get a proper read on the odd character that is Farbe-Tier. As much as she hated to admit it, she really would have to hold to her end of the bargain after all.

"What exactly is this stuff?" asked Blackfire, shivering as more salve was rubbed against the cut. It was quite cold to the touch.

"Something to help you heal and to stave off any kind of infections you might catch down here." Farbe-Tier applied the last of the salve and sat back with a smile. "There, now I'm going to get some fresh bandages for that arm, try to not touch it until then. If it feels like its getting warmer, then the salve is working." Farbe-Tier left the room and Blackfire counted the minutes that passed by until he returned, there really wasn't anything else to do in his 'borrowed' room. Aside from the bed and a cabinet filled with tasteless clothes there wasn't much to do for one's entertainment.

At least she finally had actual clothes now, if a bit too simple for her tastes. An assortment of plain summer dresses and similar wear did not a good wardrobe make but really what did she expect from a _guy_ to have good taste in clothes? Though the form-fitting dress did feel like nice and soft on her skin, quite a change from cold metal hardware.

Farbe-Tier returned with a roll of bandages in hand. He sat down beside her and started to slowly wrap the bandage around the wound on her arm. Seeking another way to entertain herself, and to get some answers out of her enigmatic rescuer/thief, Blackfire glanced at Farbe-Tier's hair, what little of it could be seen from beneath the biker's style bandanna he opted to wear today.

"What is up with your hair?"

Farbe-Tier paused for a moment but continued wrapping Blackfire's arm. "What about my hair?"

"From Starfire's transmission she saw you with hair that was "colored like our own fair skin, sister!" but yesterday it was a blue and now its violet." Blackfire scrutinized the few locks that weren't buried underneath the bandanna. The hue was almost on par with the color of her eyes.

Farbe-Tier did not bother to correct her by telling her his hair was indigo-colored yesterday rather than blue. She'd either dismiss it as a technicality and brush it off or be even more interested. "I don't use hair dye if that's what you're assuming."

"Hair… dye…? People on this planet actually _dye_ their hair?" Blackfire spoke as though the concept was completely alien to her, not all too surprising.

"Some do, yes. Why?" asked Farbe-Tier.

"Doesn't…" Blackfire trailed off, uncertain. "Doesn't hair color _mean_ anything to your kind?"

"Well… no it doesn't. Hair color is just a trait; it doesn't mean they're any different than someone else. It's what's inside that matters." Farbe-Tier answered. Blackfire stared at him with a strange expression that he couldn't identify and he didn't want to cheat by reading her emotions. "Don't your people look different from each other?"

"… About ninety percent of the population has red hair, the rest have brown. Other than that, appearances are different…" She explained, her voice completely monotone.

"Really? Huh…" Farbe-Tier tied the bandage tight and sat back in his chair. He blinked with sudden realization. "What about you? How many are born with black hair?"

"…" Blackfire didn't answer but she didn't have to. Farbe-Tier already knew, or at least had a pretty good idea.

"… Well, back to your question my hair is connected to my powers. It changes every time the sun sets to the next color on the visual spectrum." He flinched with sudden realization. "Which reminds me, I'm afraid that I won't be able to see you at all tomorrow."

"What? Why?" Blackfire cursed her voice and steadfastly refused that it had sounded so, so childishly needy!

Whether he noticed it or not, Farbe-Tier didn't show it. He rose to his feet, innately knowing the day was drawing to a close and the change would soon be upon him. "My powers aren't the only thing affected by the change, my mood can be… touchy… I will not risk injuring you or anyone I care about."

Blackfire's spark came back with those words. "You think you can take me on?"

Farbe-Tier stopped just outside the door, his hand clutching the doorknob tight. "Yes. After all, it was I who hurt you before…"

The door shut quietly behind him.

* * *

"_Farbe you know you shouldn't—_"

"I can't risk staying down here, you know that. I will not hurt either of you when I'm… like that…"

"_But the Titans might catch you this time!_"

"They didn't catch me the last few times I was up there in that state… though if I run into that idiot doctor again so help me…"

"_Farbe, I'm serious!_"

"As am I. That idiot nearly made me go blind; the least I could do was… enforce… the idea of a repeated attempt out of his head. Look, if it'll make you feel better, I'll just stick around my usual haunts okay?"

"_What, but Farbe—_"

"Please, Greta?"

"_Oh no, I'm not going to fold under that look again, mister! No! No I will not!_"

* * *

"_No I won't I said, you can't make me, I said. Why do I even bother…?_" A smoky ethereal voice made Blackfire look up and bite back a startled scream as a girl a few years her junior floated _through_ the wall, her smoky form wavering from the contact and solidifying as she drew near.

"What the—Who are you?" Blackfire demanded, trying to keep her fear out of her voice. Tamaranians are not by any means a superstitious race but even knew well of spirits and Blackfire felt the temperature drop rapidly the moment the girl entered her room.

"_I'm a Secret, which is kinda my official 'work-name' too._" The smoke girl smiled cheerfully, despite her earlier grumblings she wasn't too miffed about looking after Blackfire while Farbe-Tier was… out… After all, it was an opportunity to make a new friend! "_So how are you feeling?_"

"I'm… alright all considering I guess…" Blackfire shifted uncomfortably. This was not the behavior she expected from a denizen of the netherworld.

"_Farbe's bargain applies to me as well; you can ask what you'd like._" Secret said, seeing how uneasy Blackfire was around her.

"What… are you exactly? A spirit?"

"_Well…_" Secret floated over and sat on the end of the bed, "_if you're trying to ask if I'm dead… well, I don't know really… I mean, I don't need to but I can eat food like ice cream._"

Blackfire blinked at that. "Ice cream?" She repeated, tasting the words. "What is… ice cream?"

Secret's eyes widened to comical proportions. "_What's ice cream? Only the best thing in the whole world!_" The wraith-like girl grabbed Blackfire by the wrist and with a surprising show of strength pulled her up into the air. "_C'mon, there's a pint of rocky road with Farbe's name on it!_"

* * *

Sammy wondered just what he was thinking getting out of bed and facing the day. Had he known it would turn out as meticulously horrible as this he would have moved to hide _under_ his bed and pray for mercy of a quick and possibly painless end for his idiot friend. Okay, yeah he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but at least Sammy wasn't fool enough to actually steal from the Teen Titans. Well, it wasn't entirely his idea anyway as the car was not only one-of-a-kind but handmade via the team's mechanical wonder, Cyborg. This in turn translated as a _very_ tripped out ride.

One carefully removed car alarm and one not-so carefully removed wheel-lock later and the pair of auto-thieves were out on the open road for what had to be the best ride of their young lives. The night might not have taken a turn for the worse if Cash hadn't suggested they go and get a paintjob for their recent acquisition before moving on to Crash Alley for another chance at the prize money. If they hadn't been in such a hurry to get there, they might not have had to drive at dangerous speeds and thus nearly run down one of Jump City's notorious criminals.

Though neither Cash nor Sammy had seen him for themselves there was no mistaking him. He had traded in his Victorian overcoat for a leather jacket with a furry white collar and his top hat for a biker's bandanna and his hair, what few locks they could see falling past his eyes, was not the (in)famous orange.

Farbe-Tier's hair was red like blood.

Cash had slammed on the brakes and the T-Car proved its greatness by stopping a hair's breath away from Farbe-Tier. The two crooks breathed a relieved sigh before suddenly stiffening as Farbe-Tier openly growled at the two of them as he walked around the car and physical pulled Cash out through the side window and slamming him to the ground. He glared over his shoulder and Sammy froze, his hand on the door handle. Farbe-Tier made a 'come-hither' gesture and Sammy hastened to obey which led to the current situation of him wishing he had not gotten up that morning.

"I like to think myself a very… easygoing individual. It takes only a few small things to make me angry, but when I do get angry, well, it's rather obvious as to why. Sometimes, when I get really angry, I get this urge to start breaking things, particularly the things that made so mad to begin with. Tell me gentlemen, how do you think I feel right now?"

Sammy and Cash exchanged terrified glances before looking back down at Farbe-Tier. "Re-Really A-A-Angry?"

"Oh no, I'm not that angry. You see, while I am no fan of the modern era I cannot help but feel, what is the phrase, I believe it is something to do with wheels and the open road? Regardless, you two should consider yourselves quite fortunate. Had you a vehicle of common make, why I'd have to break your legs for nearly turning me into a pancake." Farbe-Tier's smile did not appease the two in any way. "As a thank-you for giving me my new ride, I'll allow you both to walk away…"

"Re-Really?" Cash hesitantly asked. "You're letting us go?"

"Oh most certainly. Auf Wiedersehen." Farbe-Tier released his grip on the lapels of their jackets and watched with a feral smile as the two dropped down to land in a recently filled dumpster of the restaurant he had been standing atop of while dangling the two over the street. Farbe-Tier's satisfied smile grew as one of the restaurant's waiters happened to step out with a fresh jug of fresh grease that he tossed into the dumpster.

"If revenge is sweet and life's a witch, then karma truly is one sweet witch…" Farbe-Tier sing-songed after he landed next to the dumpster. He thumped it a few times, smirking at the pained groans from within. He stepped out from the alleyway to where he had left his new prize. "Now then… I believe you and I have an appointment to keep in this… Crash Alley."

* * *

Farbe-Tier stumbled out of the car, a bit uneasy on his feet before he turned to regard it with a brilliant smile. He had been disappointed at first that his last race was to be against a _toy_ car at first but considering the rules of the illegal tournament, which of course was that the vehicle had to possess a minimum of two wheels and absolutely no flight capabilities, it wasn't all that surprising. Based on what he heard from the stadium's gossip network there was some crazy cook who made it a particular point to turn any race he participated in into a monster truck rally whether he was winning or not.

Still, despite the strange, nearly outlandish tricks the toy car had pulled out, the T-Car's own were just as good, no, they were _better_ than anything the toy car could hope to emulate or combat against. The custom-made car had a proton gun and missiles for God's sake! Oh and nitro boosters too but that wasn't anywhere near as cool as a military grade armaments.

Farbe-Tier might consider himself a gentleman most of the time but as he was a guy he fell to the same vice as all men and that was a love of large explosions.

"You and me…" Farbe-Tier lovingly stroked the T-Car's hood, faint tinges of purple appearing at the end of his red forelocks. "We're going to make _music_ together!"

"Not anymore pit-sniffer!" A childish voice cackled before a globe of golden yellow enveloped Farbe-Tier, lifting him up into the air inside the force-bubble.

"Vas!" Farbe-Tier pushed against the bubble's side but it did not yield to his touch. His canines slowly started to extend as his anger grew, his hair now fully red once more. "What sorcery is this?"

"Sorcery-smorcery!" The toy car shifted and turned upon itself to reveal a small, bald-headed child decked in a green jumpsuit and a pair of goggles. The robotic components finished shifting into a small, seemingly plain metallic backpack on the small boy's back. "This is the science of Gizmo!"

"Gizmo… Of the H.I.V.E.?" Farbe-Tier's eyes narrowed. He knew well of the H.I.V.E., but then, who didn't? The only group to come close to defeating the Teen Titans, the only villains who had beaten them on their home turf and turned their precious tower into their own fortress for all of three days before the Titans took it back with a vengeance.

"That's me! Thanks for the wheels by the way. I've been needin' a faster getaway car!" Gizmo jumped up into the driver's seat, cables stretching out from his backpack and connecting to the computerized dashboard of the T-Car.

Farbe-Tier's eyes widened and his voice sounded almost guttural as he growled at the techno-genius. "Oh no! You are _not_ taking the car! I stole it fair and square!"

"Talk ta somebody who cares! So long, snot-muncher!" Gizmo's backpack presented him with a videogame-like controller and with a press of a button; the T-Car was off and away with Gizmo behind the wheel. Farbe-Tier stared after him, his hair flickering with red-tinted energy before he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the energy fading away as he did so.

"Okay. I just got robbed by a three-foot nothing _child_… it's not the most embarrassing thing to have happened to me but still… at least it can't get any worse." Farbe-Tier realized with cold certainty that he just jinxed himself just in time as a pair of robotic hands reached through the force-field and pulled the redheaded thief out by the lapels of his jacket to be held up by a _very_ mad Cyborg.

"I want my car." Cyborg's voice was cold as ice and promised much pain if Farbe-Tier didn't respond quickly and favorably. It didn't help that Cyborg hadn't been able to buff out the brand the thief had put on his arm and had to resort to one his spares as he _refused_ to be reminded of the act on a daily basis.

More than aware of the Titan's rage, Farbe-Tier decided that honesty was the better policy. "Well, were I currently in possession of it, I might consider a fair trade for it but seeing as I just lost it in the final race…"

"You _lost_ my _car_?" One long pause. "My car lost a_ RACE?_"

Farbe-Tier snorted at that, it was nice to know the older teen had a good sense of priorities. "As if. She left all of them in the dust."

"Really? How'd she take the curves? 'Cause, you know, I've been working on the suspension for a-d-d-d-d!" Cyborg shook his head, resuming his heated glare. "Don't you try and distract me. Who has her now?"

"A lawn gnome I'm sure you're quite familiar with. Goes by the name Gizmo?" Farbe-Tier noted the ugly look Cyborg gave him at the name. "I'm going to regret this but… if you allow me to; I shall assist you in getting your car back."

"_You_ help _me_? You're the one who stole her in the first place!" exclaimed Cyborg.

"Correction. I stole her from the pair of idiots who stole her from you. Really you should be thankful because if I hadn't taken her from them, your 'baby' would be covered in a fresh coat of paint."

"They were going to _paint_ my _baby_?" Cyborg shook his head, getting back to the point. "Why would you help me in getting her back? Better yet, how do I know you won't just steal her back?"

"Look, as great as she is, I don't have the kind of time to give to your car nor the devices for proper care. I would have given her back… eventually." Farbe-Tier's eyes narrowed and his hair started sparking slightly. "Besides, as far as I'm concerned your car is of no consequence. I want to teach that runt of a villain what a bad idea it is to steal from _me_ on one of my… bad days."

Cyborg stared at Farbe-Tier for a long moment before unceremoniously shoving him back into the force-bubble.

"_Hey!_" Farbe-Tier's hair was crackling now, not that Cyborg could see it as he started walking away from the enraged shifter. "You can't just leave me in here!"

"You're right. I'll make sure the cops come pick you up. That field should hold you until they get here."

Farbe-Tier grumbled as he watched Cyborg leave the stadium, and once the titanium Titan was out of sight… "That's what _you_ think Tin-man…" His forelocks bristled as red lightning danced between sharpened canines. It wasn't a quick shift and the transformation was almost impeded by the force-bubble but the shield was designed to be temporary and to contain ordinary humans.

Farbe-Tier was far from ordinary.

Standing well over eight feet tall just at the head, the monster that Farbe-Tier had become… well, at first glance one could assume him as the mighty Minotaur of Greek legend but that was far from the truth.

His legs were bovine in nature and he possessed not one but _two_ pairs of horns atop his head, a large ram-like pair that curved over his hunched back while the smaller pair jutted forward like tusks beneath jaws more befitting a rabid short-snouted dog than an angry bull. His red skin was hard and bulbous like molten rock and his hands each had three wicked claws sharp enough to cut through the hardest metals. Black sclera with white irises slowly blinked open before fang-lined jaws let out a slow breath of smoke, a soft rumbling sigh a terrible rage.

He was no mere beast of Greek legend; he was something out of the sands of Arabia, when a thousand and one nights was still in its singular range. To put it simply, Farbe-Tier had become an efreet.

"**_My passions flare, I weep in sadness, wallow in despair, my passions change, anger reigns… now all lie in fear!_**"

* * *

"Fourteen milkshakes. Not a good sign." Raven muttered to herself before taking a seat next to a despondent Cyborg.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, eyes still on the ground as though wishing it would swallow him whole if only to end the terrible day he was having.

"Looking for your car. Soon as we turned Overload in to the police, we all split up to search the city." That did little to cheer Cyborg up any.

"Might as well stop looking. T-Car's probably halfway to Metropolis by now." Cyborg sighed. "From the day I designed her, I knew she was gonna be special. And I worked so hard, every fuel injector, every spark plug, I made her perfect. I put my heart, soul, and circuits into that car. And now she's gone forever." Another heavy sigh. "Maybe you were right. Maybe it was just a car."

"Maybe. Maybe not. When I use my powers, I have to put a little of my soul into whatever I'm moving. I become a part of it, and it becomes a part of me. That's kinda what happened here. It wasn't just a car. It was… your baby." Raven said, her voice still heavy with its usual monotone but her eyes shining with a touch of heart and darn it if Cyborg couldn't help the small smile from appearing on his somber face.

"Yeah… Thanks, Rae."

Raven's lips twitched into a small smile before her eyes caught a familiar vehicle with an equally familiar person behind the wheel. "And someone's eating onion rings in your baby."

Cyborg turned to look for himself and his eyes nearly bugged out of his skull as he caught sight of his beloved T-Car, tires spinning for a peel out with Gizmo still at the wheel. The pint-sized villain laughed as he put the pedal to the metal, the T-Car shooting off down the street leaving a disgruntled, and unpaid, waitress behind.

"HE'LL GET KETCHUP ON THE SEATS!" roared Cyborg.

At that exact moment, there came a roar of a car engine before a black convertible screeched to a halt in front of the two Titans with a hulking monstrosity behind the wheel.

"**_Need a lift?_**" Inverted eyes happened upon the stunned Raven. "**_Hey, Little Blackbird. Thanks for the cloak._**"

"Farbe-Tier?" gasped Cyborg. "How did—when did—"

"**_Where and why can all be answered later. I attempted a bargain with you once before and you snuffed me. Now, here's a new deal, MY deal. I give that gnome a righteous spanking and you get the chance to get your baby back. Do we have a bargain?_**" Farbe-Tier asked. "**_A quick answer would be preferred here, ja?_**"

Cyborg shook his head but, against his better judgment, got in next to Farbe-Tier as Raven phased into the backseat, a deep frown and distrusting glare set on her face. "Just what kind of villain are you?"

"**_I imagine a lot of people will be asking that for a long time to come. For now, just know that I'm one seriously ticked off efreet. Now shut up and hold on to something._**" Farbe-Tier's horns crackled wit red energy before the light flowed down into his massive claws and into the car. The car shook something fierce before with a sudden startling roar, it took off after the T-Car with literal flames gushing out from its exhaust pipe.

* * *

Even if it was a petty crime, Gizmo still had a good snicker over ripping off the 50's styled drive-through. The fact that he was eating in that crud-muncher Cyborg's precious car was just icing on the cake. He took a long sip of his soda and happened a glance up at the rearview mirror. He choked and sacrificed his drink to the gods of the spit-take, his beady eyes wide as he stared at the vehicle rapidly gaining on him. He instantly recognized Cyborg in the passenger seat but the monster behind the wheel was like something out of Jinx's tomes on the circles of Hell itself!

"CRUD!" Gizmo hastily took back control and punched the car to its top speed. He might be a scientific genius but even Gizmo knew well of the arcane and was well assured that there was no spitting way he was gonna go toe-to-toe with a freaking demon!

Behind the wheel of his, ahem, _borrowed_ vehicle, Farbe-Tier felt the urge to sneeze. "**_Does he really think he can get away from me?_**" Farbe-Tier snarled, gripped the wheel tighter.

"Dawg, I'm the better drive I should drive!" Cyborg grumbled to himself before biting back a yelp as Farbe-Tier fixed him a steely glare, the car suddenly jumping in acceleration slightly, flames flickering on the hood of the car before black enveloped it once more.

"**_Did you just call me a dog?_**" Black energy enveloped Farbe-Tier's horns and forced him to look forward once more.

"Eyes on the road, please." Raven deadpanned.

Grumbling but complying, Farbe-Tier focused on the road once more and bit back a foul oath as a series of small pipes appeared at the back bumper of the T-Car, unleashing a stream of oil onto the road.

"**_Tch!_**" Farbe-Tier turned the wheel sharply to the right, leaning to the side as he did so. Thanks to the added weight, the car teetered onto the right side wheels, just skating past the oil slick before slamming back down onto all fours. The pair of Titans let out a breath they didn't know they were holding before gasping again as the T-Car's proton cannon appeared on the car's roof, swirling and locking onto them as light began to shine in the barrel.

"Booyah! Check out my baby's proton cannon!" That earned Cyborg a glare from Farbe-Tier and Raven both though the former accompanied it with an angry growl. "Uh, I mean… oh no…"

The proton cannon unleashed a small volley upon them, forcing Farbe-Tier to swerve the car like a demented serpent to avoid being hit. One shot gets too close for comfort by striking the road in front of the convertible but it drives on through regardless. Farbe-Tier glanced to the right and jerked the wheel, driving the car up along the rock face beside the road before forcing the car to go higher and higher before settling onto a stretch of old road just above the T-Car.

"Come on, man! Faster, faster!"

"**_Fine!_**" Farbe-Tier slammed the claws of his right hand through the dashboard, still keeping a grip of the steering with his left, before glancing back at Raven. "**_Make me angry!_**"

"What?"

"**_I said make me angry you half-blooded witch!_**" Raven's eyes widened in shock before narrowing into dangerous slits, a faint flicker of red shining in their depths as a black ball exploded at the end of Farbe-Tier's nose. With a roar of pain outmatched by the sudden roar of the convertible's engine, crimson energy danced around Farbe-Tier's horns before shooting down through the car.

Its black paint job fell under a sea of red and the front grill shifted and turned into beastial fangs as spikes grew from the tires. Despite his bruised nose, Farbe-Tier allowed a small smile. The transformation wouldn't last long but it would last long enough to end this race! The radio clicked suddenly to life, the beginning guitar instrumental of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" playing loud and clear.

The car roared once more and it shot forward at startling speeds before it started to speed over a bump in the road that sent it flying over the road to land next to the T-Car and a startled/screaming Gizmo. Farbe-Tier grinned and allowed the car to do what it willed and it willed to knock fenders with the T-Car as the efreet reached over and grabbed the passenger door, gripping it tightly in his powerful claws.

"**_You're little joyride is over, Lawn Gnome! Pull over!_**"

"Make me, Goat-man!" exclaimed Gizmo, sounding braver than he actually felt.

The convertible's engine roared, gushing out another small jet of flames as red energy crackled along Farbe-Tier's horns. "**_I said, PULL OVER!_**"

Cyborg was cheering Farbe-Tier on and, not really trusting a suddenly demonic car to keep track of the road, Raven kept her eyes forward as a literal backseat driver. This proved to be the smart thing as a pair of headlights appeared on the oncoming turn and approaching too fast for any of the cars to stop.

"Azarath. Metrion. _Zinthos_!" There was a sound like shattering glass and the convertible was back to normal and enveloped in black light before it was hauled upwards into the air.

"CRUD!" Gizmo punched the ejector seat and launched past the flying convertible as the passengers stared down at the JCPD prison transport truck slammed into the T-Car, thankfully empty of the actual officers who jumped ship, or car as the case is, shortly before the convertible took to the air.

Raven carefully set the car down not to far away and Cyborg was up and moving toward the decimated T-Car. "Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay…"

"Heh!" Farbe-Tier glanced up to see Gizmo floating down towards them. "Looks like your stupid car is—" Black telekinesis hit the parachute, wrapping it tighter than a Christmas package, silencing the mouthy little villain.

"**_… I suppose that works._**" Farbe-Tier sighed. Raven blinked and bit back a gasp as Farbe-Tier's efreet body had vanished and he appeared as nothing more than an ordinary human with blazing red hair. A sudden crack of lightning turned their attention to the downed prison van as sparks danced along its surface before another bolt shot itself into the decimated T-Car.

"_Car is better than okay…_" A mechanized voice spoke from within as a floppy-disk shaped head appeared behind the wheel, attached to a body made entirely of electricity. It was the computerized golem, Overload. "_Car is mine!_"

Cyborg recoiled back in shock with a small gasp as Overload laughs and pulls out the circuit board that was the literal heart of the T-Car before he fed himself into the slot. With a shudder, all the damage to done to the T-Car was repair, restoring it to pristine condition shortly before the blue circuitry within shifted to red and glass a tinted black. The headlights narrowed into fierce slits, blazing to life as the engine revved up.

"_Only way to stop Overload is to destroy your precious car!_" taunted Overload, speaking through the sound systems of the T-Car. He surged forward with a squeal of burning rubber as Cyborg stood before it, not moving except to raise up his sonic cannon and aiming it straight ahead.

"It's not my car anymore…" Cyborg softly spoke. He unleashed a sonic blast upon the possessed vehicle, which took the full brunt of it and was literally blown to pieces of shrapnel. The only pieces still recognizable are a burning pair of fuzzy dace and Overload circuit board body lying on the ground, his body gone.

"_Overload… overloaded…_" He groaned before shutting down.

"She's gone… Gone forever." Cyborg whispered to himself.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Raven stepped up next to Cyborg. "These," She waved at the scattered shrapnel, "are just parts. The thing you loved about that car-the thing that made her special," She turned her attention back to Cyborg. "That came from inside you."

"Well, that and this it looks like. Shiny isn't it?" The Titans looked over toward a smirking Farbe-Tier who held up a familiar blue circuit board. Cyborg gasped and started to race over but Farbe-Tier held up a hand, the other dangling the circuit board over the ravine. "Hold on there, Tin Man. I am many things but stupid I am not. I know that those," He inclined his head at the wreckage, "are replaceable but this little thing… well, not so easy to duplicate is she?" Farbe-Tier sighed theatrically as Cyborg openly scowled at him.

"Still, I got my prize money and my quota of high-speed action for the month… so I guess I can be a little selfless today. Catch!" With a flick of his wrist, Farbe-Tier sent the circuit board flying.

"Ack!" Cyborg scrambled backwards juggling with the thing for a moment before Raven calmly caught it out of midair with her telekinesis and handed it over to him. As Cyborg cooed lovingly over the small device, Raven glanced back to Farbe-Tier, not at all surprised to see the thief was already long gone, his laughter echoing behind him. The dark sorceress glanced back at the convertible and her eyes widened in surprise for their atop the hood appearing as no more than an ordinary burnt mark was another symbol, different from the one still found on Cyborg's old arm.

This one was another circle that had a pair of lines growing from its rounded sides, the bottom, smaller pair jutting downwards like tusks while the larger pair jutted upwards like horns. This too wasn't a mark that Raven recognized but that feeling of déjà vu was far stronger in seeing this one and somewhere deep in her mixed blood, a dark spark of her heritage lit up in recognition of the sign and deep below the Earth an imprisoned demon slowly began to stir…

* * *

Farbe-Tier grumbled to himself as he shook the last bit of gravel out of his shoe. "Note to self, rolling down a small mountain is generally not a good idea, despite superior strength and ability of an efreet…" He dusted off his coat and continued walking through the catacombs of Jump City, still trailing bits of dust and grit despite the continual pat downs. He scratched at his red hair, brushing it clear of dust but though he could not see it, there at that very base of his hairline at the back of his head, a strand of hair falling down unseen in the dark.

"Well that was an interesting way to spend the night…" He took off his bandanna and shook it clear of some dust, grumbling as he did so. "I think a long shower is in order and then… yawn… bed… I can check on Blackfire in the evening…"

He walked past the kitchen area and continued on towards his room before stopping. He slowly backed up and glanced into the kitchen and repressed the urge to growl. Secret was sitting at the counter, asleep but her mouth still gooey with melted ice cream with a large pint of the stuff sitting empty beside her. He knew she had a sweet-tooth but could she at least _try_ to stay out of his stash of ice cream? It wasn't easy getting that stuff down here before it melted you know!

He looked around the kitchen and felt his anger spark just a tad higher before confusion started to reign. Several more pints of ice cream of various flavors were littered about all over the place and while Secret could pack a lot of the stuff away and never gain an ounce, there was no way she could have eaten the entire stock of it on her own. This of course led to only one possible suspect.

"Hic! We-Well, look who's come back!" Orange-tinted arms wrapped themselves loosely about Farbe-Tier's shoulders. "Hiccup!"

"Blackfire?" Farbe-Tier looked back over his shoulder and saw that Blackfire lips were only a bit stained with leftover ice-cream and set in a _very_ drunken smile.

"Gloriously rapturous! Hic! I can—I can taste it on the end of my tongue! _Ice cream!_ Hic! It is a wonder how—how your people can have such wars whilst ignoring the—Hic!—applications of sweet and cold dairy creams!" Blackfire swooned a bit, struggling to stand and Farbe-Tier hastily wrapped his arms around her waist. "Oh wow…! The force of gravity is certainly fluctuating isn't it?"

Farbe-Tier was struggling to maintain balance with the teetering alien girl. For the first time in a long time, he was thankful of the monstrous strength he currently possessed that put him on equal footing with the Tamaranian princess.

"Blackfire I uh…" It was really hard to concentrate with her making soft cooing noises into his ear. "I'm a little bit concerned here. Are you—"

"Concerned!" Blackfire giggled as though it was the funniest thing she had ever heard and hugged Farbe-Tier tightly. "You're the only one who caaaaares about meeeeee!"

"Hey now, you know that's not true." Farbe-Tier carefully started to guide her back to her room. "C'mon let's get you to bed alright?"

Blackfire's eyes fluttered and she giggled. "Okay!"

Farbe-Tier quirked a red-tinted eyebrow but didn't bother to comment, focusing more on keeping a firm grip around her waist. The trip took longer than normal but wasn't that surprising considering he had his arms full with a drunk-out-of-her-mind alien. Pushing the door open, Farbe-Tier sighed in relief at the sight of the undisturbed room. "Okay, Blackfire let's—Yikes!"

Sudden like a viper, Blackfire had grabbed a firm hold of Farbe-Tier's shirt and pulled him with her as she flung herself to land atop the bed. "Too many clothes…" Smiling with a perverted light in her dark violet eyes, Blackfire started to push Farbe-Tier's jacket off and, realizing her intent, Farbe-Tier grabbed her by the wrists.

"Blackfire, listen to me, you're not thinking straight right now." The boy's hair sparked yellow at the tips, a splash of violet fighting in a sea of red. "You don't want this, not really."

"Silly boy…" Blackfire giggled, leaning back and putting emphasis on her chest which Farbe-Tier steadfastly ignored, keeping his eyes on her own. "I do want this… I want _you…_" She suddenly leaned forward, pressing her forehead against Farbe-Tier's, surprising the young man with the tears in her eyes. "Don't you want me?"

Violet and red clashed and Farbe-Tier grit his teeth in pain of it but he spoke the truth. "I want you to be happy Blackfire and I know you can't be happy with me… no matter how much I wish otherwise."

She surprised him with a soft smile, pushing her forehead against his once more, a darker blush spreading across her nose. "You are too selfless you know that?" She jerked her arms back, causing Farbe-Tier to lose his grip and fall down on top of her. Her arms wrapped tightly around him, pinning his own in place as she pressed her face against the crook of his neck. "Too… selfless… Zzzz…" She fell asleep.

"A startling trend that is…" Farbe-Tier sighed wondering whether it was worth the effort of trying to escape without waking her up. A pair of soft lips pressed against his neck, a soft cooing breath tickled down his spine. He sighed and resigned himself to the fact that, yes, he would indeed be killed with extreme violence once Blackfire woke up. "Guten nacht, Blackfire." He leaned forward just a bit and pressed his lips against Blackfire's cheek in a quick kiss before settling back to sleep, never seeing the smile grow on Blackfire's face.

_

* * *

To Be Continued..._

**

* * *

On the next wavelength…  
**

_Rampant Fear  
_


	4. Rampant Fear

DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.

* * *

**The Spectrum of Light**

By Corvus no Genmu

03: Rampant Fear

"_She still hasn't come out of her room?_"

"Shoved everything she could in front of the door, not that I needed to be reminded of trying to trespass in there…" Farbe-Tier flinched as he pressed the cold compress to his bruised cheek, thankful that none of his teeth were broken.

Secret fussed over him, hovering about like a mother hen. "_She didn't have to hit you so hard, not when you're… well…_"

"Not in a constant rage?" Farbe-Tier flicked his vibrantly orange hair out of his eyes. "Just as well she did, I'm not sure I would have withheld the urge to strike back in that state." He shot a glance at his ghostlike friend. "Don't think that you're off the hook either. You should have realized that ice cream doesn't work well with her kind."

"_What? How would I have known that ice cream is like alchohol to Tamaraneans?_" asked a bewildered Secret.

"Somewhere between the rocky road and chunky monkey I think," muttered Farbe-Tier. "On that note, no ice cream for a month."

"_Aww! But Farbe—_"

"Not up to discussion. We made a deal and you broke it. More than that, you put Blackfire in serious risk intentional or not. You should have known how dangerous it is to give her food that might well be poisonous to her! Mein Gott, Greta! She could have wandered off, drunk out her mind, and gotten lost in the Catacombs. Do you understand me? Blackfire could have gotten hurt, or _worse_, and it would have been _your fault_."

Secret didn't answer, she didn't have to. She was sitting down on the chair opposite him with her head bowed and shoulders quivering as teardrops fell and vanished like smoke on the table. Farbe-Tier was up and moving as the words whispered like the wind, "_I'm sorry… I'm sorry…_"

Farbe-Tier embraced her in a hug, stroking her hair soothingly. "I'm not angry at you, Greta… but I am disappointed. You've learned your lesson from this, ja?" A jerky nod. "Then you know who you should really be apologizing to, ja?" A hesitant, shy nod. "Good. In that case, I'm off. I don't think that I'm Blackfire's favorite person right now after all." He chuckled though it was a dry, empty sound. "I've a lot of errands to run so I don't know when I'll be back."

Secret watched him go, knowing what he wasn't saying. _I don't want to be around Blackfire because all I'm doing is making her recovery worse for her. I'll be back when Blackfire's armor is done and hopefully use it as a peace offering._ At least, that's what she assumed Farbe-Tier was thinking and she'd be right in a way. Just as Blackfire was also correct in thinking that as she had stayed behind the door to the kitchen, listening in on the entire conversation from beginning to end and disappearing back to her room with Farbe-Tier and Secret none the wiser. If she was correct in assuming that Farbe-Tier would not return until her armor was fully repaired then that meant she had quite a bit of time on her hands, which was a blessing really.

She had a lot of thinking to do.

* * *

Titans Tower, Jump City's most iconic sight in all of Jump City though its standing still numbered in months rather than years. It was located just off the coast of the city, not quite spitting's distance but still close enough that swimming to the island was not too out of the question for those insane enough to do so. Shaped like a giant 'T', it was hard to imagine that no villain had ever considered any serious means of assault against the Tower but then, the only ones who ever walked within the massive T-shaped building were the Titans themselves and the three graduates of the H.I.V.E. who had even tried to reconstruct the Tower in their own image during their brief stay. Since then, the Titans had upped the security somewhat but nowhere near enough for someone like Farbe-Tier.

A day had passed and for the first time in a long time, Farbe-Tier found himself completely bored out of his mind and craving for something _more_ than his usual want of jewelery or money. The previous few adventures had taken place long into the night and well into the morning and, sad as it was, he had grown used to the late hours and while Jump City was an interesting place during the day, it seemed almost lackluster in the hours of the night at least in terms of thievery and the sort. What fun was there to be had in robbing a place hours after it closed, with the chance of running into the Teen Titans dropped almost to nill? Farbe-Tier loved the thrill of the hunt, even if he was often the prey rather than the predator.

Tonight was going to be different.

Having already gone to see if the repairs on Blackfire's armor were nearly complete, which sadly they weren't to be finished until the next evening, possibly even that following morning, and finding… well, not really a lack of desire more like a lack of drive in stealing anything of mediocre value, at least to his own tastes, Farbe-Tier had planned to spend the evening checking out some movies that had caught his eyes when he saw… _it_.

The fat idiot who held it in his meaty palms called it a remote and used it as such with surprising control of it and its powers. Greasy-McStupid, or Control Freak as he proclaimed himself, was every bit the stereotypical geek and proceeded to unleash unholy hell upon the video rental store while raving nonsensical facts about something or other, Farbe-Tier wasn't paying too much attention having his arms full with a frightened cashier, the both of them hiding behind the counter as Control Freak continued ranting.

Until the Titans showed up.

Needless to say, the day was saved and Control Freak was sent to jail but his precious remote remained in Robin's hands to be stored in their secure evidence room located within their Tower. Farbe-Tier barely managed to get away without being seen what with the teenaged cashier hugging him and thanking him profusely for protecting her like he did. Not that he did it intentionally mind you, the moment any one of the constructs actually happened to spot him, they turned tail and rushed one of the Titans, screaming in fear.

Thus, Farbe-Tier found himself dripping wet on the shores of Titans Island, carefully making his way towards the dark tower. Slopping back wet yellow hair, Farbe-Tier happened a glance up at the Tower's glass walls and blinked in surprise. He carefully walked up the rocky field towards the Tower, his hand weaving through the air as faint yellow tendrils appeared and disappeared with his motions.

"Okay… that's strange… what on earth could do they be doing up there?" He paused at the base of the Tower and looked upwards at the one lit window up near its top, where the common room was. Farbe-Tier's eyes narrowed, the room's lights were off but by the flickering of varying shades and colors, the television was not. "Are they… watching a _horror_ film?" It made sense in a way, the shining beacons nearly startling in their intensity at least to Farbe-Tier's eyes.

However, only _four_ could be called beacons while the fifth was a star, its shine far more intense than the others…

And it was growing brighter.

The television was turned off and the shadows remained. Farbe-Tier closed his eyes and stretched out his senses, waiting until there was no one in the common room. He smiled, yellow energy weaving through his hands.

"This will almost be too easy." A crack of lightning lit up the night and for the briefest of moments, Farbe-Tier's face had become almost skeletal in the flickering light.

* * *

"Who screamed?" Raven asked, racing—sorry walking _briskly_ into the lit common room where the other Titans had gathered, all having been awakened by the sound of a woman's screaming for her life, her voice echoing in the dark hallways of the Tower.

"It sounded like something from the movie." Robin frowned, glancing at the large monitor screen. "Did we leave the TV on?"

"We did not." Starfire shook her head, quivering slightly as she held up the video, still in its case. "And the movie is right here." As if waiting on her words, the Tower's power system suddenly shut down and the room was shrouded in darkness.

Cyborg glanced around, deeply concerned that the emergency lights hadn't shown an inclination of turning on. "Okay. That's creepy." A small flashlight lit up on his shoulder, as Cyborg carefully looked around before focusing the light on their fearless leader. Lightning flashed outside once again and rain began to fall in a torrential downpour.

"The storm." Robin glanced at outside, frowning as lightning shot by the window, too close for comfort. "Probably just tripped a circuit breaker…" It was a poor excuse, he knew it, but as long as it kept the more emotional members of the team from freaking out… Robin glanced down as a green tentacle appeared on his shoulder and he managed a small smile. "Okay, Beast Boy, you got us." He brushed the tentacle off. "Good one."

Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg all remained staring in shock as a small green changeling stepped forward, all four quivering in fear.

"Uh… dude?"

Robin's eyebrows met his hairline and he turned around in a quick spin as Cyborg moved his flashlight to reveal a familiar robed one-eyed terror that was standing in the center of the room, dark green tentacles wavering in the air. Its breaths were ragged and came in steamy puffs as its sole crimson eye focused upon the group of scared heroes. A scabbed hand with sharp metallic claws reached up to the cowl of its cloak and tore it away as the creature beneath it swelled to monstrous proportions.

Blueish green skin covered in scars and half-healed scabs, a face that appeared badly burned with a single pupil-less red eye blazing beneath long, ratty black locks. Black fangs lined the inside of a slavering mouth mimicked three times over on a human torso that melted away into tentacles that slashed through the air like whips. The Creature's black fangs lined in a terrible smile before it tilted back its head and _roared._

A tentacle lashed out and with frightening ease grabbed the couch and tossed it straight at the Titans. They scattered as the couch crashed to pieces on the floor and found themselves occupied with the Creature's tentacles which moved like vipers against them. Robin spun past the one focused on him, leaping at it for a kick to the Creature's face but he was smacked aside like a fly, rolling past Beast Boy who had transformed into a tyrannosaurus. The dinosaur king unleashed a primordial roar in the Creature's face who, for a brief moment looked almost _amused_, responded back in kind, scaring Beast Boy so badly that he shifted into a cat and high-tailed away from it with a frightened yowl.

Now the Creature sported a smile on _all_ of its mouths but its jovial mood turned dark as a starbolt struck it from behind. It turned, teeths gnashing in a loud snarl as Starfire unleashed several more starbolts upon it, which it blocked with a single raised arm before lashing out with a tentacle and whipping her down to the floor. She screamed under the Creature's ice-like touch as Cyborg jumped upon its back, trying to wrestle it down to the ground.

"Azarath Metrion Zinth—" Lightning shot past the tower, a monster illuminated upon the glass and though badly startled, Raven's powers did not manifest as black light upon her hands and she stares at them in surprise. "My powers!"

Robin, his eyes focused entirely on Starfire, rushed in upon the Creature and was immediately caught in another tentacle, held up and away from the alien princess. Beast Boy, in the shape of an eagle, swooped down at the Creature's eyes, raking at its eyes with his claws before shifting into an octopus and performed a rendition of another horror monster by hugging the Creature's face with everything he had. Those still trapped within the Creature's own tentacles redoubled their efforts in breaking free, while Raven did something both brave and foolhardy.

She _charged_ at the thing, her hands bare of weapons or magic and got a tentacle to the sternum for her efforts, tossing her to the back of the room, next to the stairs which gave a good thwack to her head.

And just like that, the Creature was gone as though it were never there to begin with and the Titans in its grasp fell to a heap on the floor.

"_Eeek!_ Someone's claws are on my grebnaks!" Starfire exclaimed.

A small popping sound, a sudden shift from beast to boy.

"Heh… my bad." Beast Boy apologized, hastily standing up and away from Starfire. Fool he might be half the time but Beast Boy was a creature of instinct and Man's instinct of preservation in the face of righteous female fury was not one to be denied.

"There _was_ a monster here… right?" asked Cyborg, his robotic eye shining as it went through a variety of visual ranges to try and spot a trace of the Creature and coming up with nothing.

"But where di it go?" asked Robin, a hand on the damaged couch, the only distinct piece of evidence of the Creature's short-lived existence.

"And from where did it come?" asked Starfire, shuffling closer to Robin.

Beast Boy shot them all incredulous looks. "_Hello?_ Isn't it obvious? The movie's cursed!" He waved the box around before realizing he was touching it and dropped it to the floor and skittered away from it. "Watching it opened a portal to another dimension. The monster came through the portal, now it's going to hunt us down and eat us! And I'm probably delicious!"

The others stared at him for a _long_ moment.

"Or…" supplied Cyborg.

"Control Freak must have escaped and come to the Tower to get his remote—and take his revenge." Robin glanced back at Raven as she stepped forward into the light of Cyborg's flashlight.

"But that doesn't explain why my powers aren't working."

"If that remote can turn candy evil, who knows what else it can do?" Cyborg held a hand to his stomach, remembering _that_ particular folly of his all too well.

"Whatever's going on, we need to get to the bottom of it. Split up and search the Tower!" ordered Robin before he and the others scattered. Except for a bewildered Beast Boy who shifted into a giant squid and pulled them all back before resuming human form.

"Split up? _Split__ up?_ Did you _not_ see the movie? When you split up, the monster hunts you down one at a time, starting with the good-looking comic relief guy." Beast Boy grabbed Robin by the front of his vibrantly colored uniform and started to shake him back and forth. "_ME!_"

"G-G-Get a gr-grip, Beast Boy!" Robin pulled himself free from the frightened changeling's panicked grasp. "The monster's not going to eat anybody."

"He's right. There's nothing to be afraid of." Raven agreed in her usual monotone voice, her eyes almost deadpan with her lack of expression.

"**_Oh, I wouldn't be too sure of that…_**"

A crash of lightning sends an intense flash of light over the Titans and turns their eyes to the windows and the sight that awaits them turns their blood cold with fear.

It is humanoid only in build, what with its four, long and bony arms stretching out across the glass where thin, clawlike fingers grip the smooth material with little effort despite the torrential downpour. The legs are almost canine in build but are built to be too large, too humanlike to be considered as such. The head is also like a dogs but the ears are more like those of an elf, long and pointed back along the yellow, furry mane of the skull, and its snout… The flesh and muscle is gone and yet its mouth still moves open and a long red, wet tongue licks at bony fangs. The eyes are inverted, black on white, except for the third, terrible eye that sits upon the forehead that glowed with golden light as the miasma around the monstrosity's body twisted and turned as though it were alive. Alive… and hungry…

This was a creature Raven knew well thanks to the archives that was her own personal library, a monstrosity from the lands of the Orient that dined on human flesh and drank the bitter-sweet tears born from fear.

A rakshasa.

It didn't matter who screamed first, it set a reaction off and soon the whole room was awash in a sea of screams before five terrified heroes took the better part of valor and ran as though their lives depended on it. The rakshasa's bony jaws clacked togethered, its tongue dancing between venomous fangs.

"**_That went better than I expected,_**" said an immensely pleased Farbe-Tier. The rakshasa slowly phased through the glass and stepped down into the Tower's common room. He shook himself free of the water that clung desperately to his fur before looking down the hall the Titans had retreated through. The third eye upon his brow slowly closed and with it, the miasma of fear that surrounded Farbe-Tier vanished beyond mundane sight but it was still there, flickering at the edge of perception.

Farbe-Tier's grin was a touch mad, his inverted eyes gleaming with strange moral depravity, small flickerings of yellow light sparkling amidst his golden fur. "**_Run and hide, it will not matter. You cannot escape from your fears!_**"

* * *

Whether by fortune or pure dumb luck, the Titans somehow managed to stick together in their mad dash away from the monstrosity that had attached itself to their window leering at them with madness in its inverted eyes.

"Wait a minute…" Robin pushed himself to his feet. The others were still trying to catch their breath. "Did anyone else get a look at that thing's eyes?"

"Its eyes?" panted Cyborg. "Man, who cares? That thing was scarier than that other thing!"

"Rakshasa." Raven stood calm and collected though there was a faint tremble in her shoulders. "That was a rakshasa."

"Is that a common creature on this planet?" asked Starfire, looking downright terrified at the idea.

Raven shook her head. "They're supposed to be gone, just like—" She cut herself off and her eyes narrowed. "It's him…"

"Who are you talking about, Raven?" asked Cyborg before his human eye widened in surprise before narrowing in a rage. "That little steampunk!"

"I have my suspicions." Robin hesitantly stated. "But we've got no proof that it's him."

"Who are you guys talking about?" asked Beast Boy.

"Yes, I too am most confused. Whom are you referring to?" Starfire asked.

"Farbe-Tier," said Raven, her statement accompanied by a sudden thunderclap of lightning that bathed the dark hallway with a sudden flash of light. The sound of thunder echoed as a new sound grew in the shadows, the sound of haunting laughter.

"**_Found out so quickly…_**" Yellow miasma floated through the hallway like fireflies. "**_I thought you'd take a little longer to realize. Tell me what was it that gave me away?_**" The Titans stood back-to-back in a large circle, weapons and powers at the ready for another attack. "**_Ah, it was my eyes wasn't it… Now you see why I try so hard to hide them, makes me rather hard to miss doesn't it?_**" The miasma swirled above the Titans in a slow circle.

"How are you doing this? What have you done to my powers?" growled Raven, powerless as she stood glaring up at the haunting light.

"**_What have I done?_**" The miasma paused before suddenly scattering, vanishing away through the walls as lightning crashed once again. Laughter echoed throughout the Tower as Farbe-Tier speaks, his voice fading with every word. "**_You shouldn't be scared Little Blackbird, it isn't I who summoned that Creature here. The true summoner is a lot closer than any of you think._**"

"I am _not_ afraid!"

Another crash of thunder and a swarm of tentacles lashed out of the darkness, ensnaring Beast Boy and pulling him back through the open doorway at the end of the hall. The changeling tried to shift but a black spark of energy shot through his green body and as he was pulled through the hallway and into the darknnes he had time enough to scream.

"What did I tell you? Funny guy always goes fiiiiiirst!" The door slammed shut just as the Titans caught up. Robin struggled to force it open and the slowly gives way until Cyborg joins the spike-haired leader and together they force the doorway open to find nothing but darkness. No light, no sound…

No Beast Boy…

Starfire gasped. "Beast Boy! He is—"

"Gone…" whispered Raven.

"Give me some light." Robin ordered.

Cyborg noded and his flashlight lit up as a high-intensity beam that slowly panned across the room and its numerous display cases and covered walls. "The evidence room. What would Farbe-Tier want in the evidence room?"

Robin didn't answer and walked into the spacious room with firm resolve, until he found the one podium with its new occupant still present.

"Control Freak's remote." Raven muttered.

"Right where I left it." Robin muttered.

"Then perhaps Farbe-Tier is being untruthful?" asked Starfire. "How could the Control Freak conjure these monsters without his technology?"

"What reason would Farbe-Tier have to lie?" Robin shook his head. "It doesn't make sense…"

"Maybe Control Freak has an extra remote. I mean, we got nine…" suggested Cyborg, not really buying into the idea that Farbe-Tier wasn't somehow involved, still quite sore over the joyride the punk had in his car.

"Well, whoever is doing this, they're not gonna scare us." Raven declared, drawing Robin's eyes to her.

"The summoner is closer than you think… That's it!" He faced them, turning his back to the wall, heedless of the expanding shadow. "The monsters, Raven's powers—the answer's right in front of us! If Farbe-Tier isn't behind this, it has to be—" Gleaming red eyes snapped open in a field of oblivion as tentacles lashed out, binding Robin's mouth shut.

The tentacles pulled him back tow the wall, phasing through the shadows just like before but Robin's body proves to be every bit as stubborn as his teacher and he manages to resist the pull as Raven and Starfire reached him and tried to pull him free before more tentacles emerge and swat the girls away like flies. This new ones further ensare Robin and he slowly starts to disappear into the wall just as Cyborg grabs ahold of Robin's free hand and begins a tug-of-war with the Titans' leader as the rope. The Creature's grip is too strong even for Cyborg and Robin is torn away, vanishing into the shadows.

Cyborg dashed to the wall, pressing against it with his hands but it doesn't yield. "_Robin!_" He lets out a frustrated groan before cocking a fist back and punching out the wall. Debris flies everywhere as a dust cloud rises up from the human-sized hole in the wall.

There is no one there on the other side and a despondent Cyborgs turns to look upon the stunned girls. "I don't suppose either of you know what he was about to say." They shake their heads and Cyborg looks down at the ground before he turns and walks away, the girls quickly following after him.

The room is still and quiet, the only sound being the echoing of footsteps and the tumblings of loose architecture. A clawed hand suddenly pierces through the undamaged wall. Three more appeared before Farbe-Tier slowly stepped through the wall, the yellow miasma that surrounded his body shining despite the third eye upon his brow still being closed. He held his hands, all four of them, inspecting the glow of miasma.

"**_Their fear is rising… and with it so too do the effects of Little Blackbird's powers…_**" A sickening smile spread on fanged jaws. "**_Do I detect a hint of pride in you?_**" No response, not that he was expecting any as he slowly looked about the room before his eyes set upon the demonic looking remote control. "**_There you are…_**" He picked it up but spared a glance at a nearby case and nearly choked, the miasma spiking brightly for a moment. "**_What is _**that**_ doing here?_**"

The object in question rested on a small podium surrounded by bullet-proof glass, standing with the aid of strings attaching to the glass. It was a small wooden puppet with an oversized head with a vastly undersized crown atop its head. Lifeless as it was, the thing was more befitting evidence as whatever gave it life as the Puppet King vanished with the destruction of its control. The glass shattered with a burst of golden light and the thing slowly floated over to Farbe-Tier's waiting hand.

He looked at the puppet with clear disdain, glancing out the corner of his eye at the wall where several other puppets rested, noting the familiar likeness they shared with the Titans. His glare returned once more to the puppet in his hands and his third eye opened with a sudden flash of yellow light. He dropped the puppet to the floor, holding out the hand that touched it as though it were suddenly diseased.

"**_Coffin wood…_**" Farbe-Tier whispered. "**_It _**is**_ made of coffin wood!_**" The miasma swarmed the puppet, reacting to Farbe-Tier's silent commands and the puppet was vaporized with nothing left but a small pile of ash. The ashes settled on the floor before a small cloud of green smoke started to rise upwards from the remains and in a flash of golden miasma, it too was gone.

Looking immensely satisfied with himself, the rakshasa twirled the remote like a gun and blew pretend smoke from its draconic mouth. A twist of the wrist and the remote was gone and pleased with a job well-done, Farbe-Tier started to leave when his eyes chanced upon a single solitary mask amidst sheets of newspaper and a large variety of broken gear that bordered on the insanely obsessed. The mask itself wasn't anything spectacular by any means, it was colored black on one side and a dull orange on the other, that left side being the only one to have an open slot for one's eye.

The miasma around Farbe-Tier's rakshasa body froze in an instant, all four of his hands clenching painfully tight. The tremor started in the fists and moved slowly upwards until Farbe-Tier was visibly shaking like a leaf in the middle of a terrible windstorm though the miasma that surrounded him still remained frozen, its ethereal light began to ebb in a strange pattern much like a human heartbeat. Farbe-Tier's inverted eyes were wide as they stared into the depths of the mask but it was not the mask that he saw, but a man standing tall with a dominating presence over two small cowering children, all three staring with cold, acussing eyes.

All at Farbe-Tier.

* * *

Robin walked the halls of Titans Tower with a frown on his face though the day had barely began, if one did not include the previous night's events such as they were. Like the others who were 'taken' by the Creature, Robin did not know for sure where he was or what had happened to him, only becoming aware when Raven had at last admitted to her fear and regained control over her powers, returning him and the rest of the Titans returned to the Tower. Farbe-Tier hadn't been seen or heard before Robin had been taken but according to Cyborg and a thoroughly frightened Starfire, something had occurred a short while afterward.

Desperate to try and find him and Beast Boy, the shrinking band of heroes had returned to the common room to try and begin a new search there when a terrible sound echoed throughout the Tower. Cyborg's circuitry nearly overloaded from the frequency of the scream, for surely that's all it could have been, and poor Starfire was still shivering at the _memory_ of the sound. As the screaming reached its crescendo, Cyborg's sensors red a massive power output that had expanded until it suddenly collapsed in upon itself. This was shortly before the aftershocks of yellow miasma literally slammed into them.

They weren't hurt, not more than a few bad bruises but that wasn't why Robin was searching for the epicenter of the explosion.

He slammed his fist against the button on the wall and stepped into the lit evidence room with a scowl on his face, his cape billowing behind him as he moved. His keen eyes caught the empty pedestal that held Control Freak's remote first before a fresh sweep brought him to the shatter glass case that once held the Puppet King. He kneeled down and carefully wiped a finger against the floor, noting the small pile of ash that littered it.

Why would Farbe-Tier bother to take the remote but destroy the Puppet King? As much as he know about him, Robin wagered that the thief would steal anything of rarity and there was plenty more to take in the evidence room. Glancing around, Robin smirked slightly and shook his head. Not that there was anything there that the "Quality Thief" could define as valuable.

Still… how did Farbe-Tier even know about Control Freak's remote and why would he go to such risks to take it but leave so much behind? Then there was the Puppet King… as far as Robin was concerned, the thing wasn't truly alive or dangerous but it was still evidence… Farbe-Tier had to have known that so again why would dig himself a deeper hole?

Finding himself with more questions than answers Robin rose and started to leave, glaring at Slade's mask as he always did when he paused. He slowly stepped back and turned to face the mask fully, a frown on his face as he stared at it. Something was wrong with it but he couldn't tell what. Reaching up, Robin hesitantly started to lay a hand upon it when the doors suddenly swooshed open.

"Are you here, Robin?" Starfire asked, a faint quiver in her voice. She was clutching the large stuffed chicken that Raven had given her from their last trip to the carnival like it was her only friend. Obviously, she had not managed to sleep well that morning…

"I'm here, Starfire. It's alright. C'mon, I'll make us some breakfast, I think there's some mustard still left…" Robin 's hand dropped away from the mask and he led Starfire away to the kitchen. Had he a moment longer in time, he would have seen that there was a wicked surprise waiting in that particular mask but as that particular trap had no reason to be sprung, the Boy Wonder would have had the chance to look _inside_ the mask and see something truly terrifying.

It was another symbol but this wasn't anything like the one that had branded itself on Cyborg's old arm or the one Raven had seen on the hood of their "borrowed" car. The first was unrecognizable and the second just gave a strange feeling of déjà vu in a certain empath. This one was made of a circle just like the others but that was where the similarity ended. At its top was a pair of lines that jutted upward where a small curved connected them like a helmet while the base had a smaller pair that jutted downwards before curling upwards like arms raised upwards in victory… or terror…

This was vastly different than the previous symbols not because of its difference in design… but because this was not a symbol that was strange and unique.

Robin _knows_ this mark but more than that, he knows who carried it like a banner across his chest.

Had he seen it, the Boy Wonder would have done everything in his power to bring Farbe-Tier down, his assumptions made under a biased opinion of that marking. He would have even tried to fix old bridges had he realized even the faintest of inclinations that mark had with Farbe-Tier. As it is however, the mark would remain unseen for months to come and in the days that would up to its discovery… well, needless to say there will be more important things…

For the future, as the Titans know it, is about to change in ways they couldn't _possibly_ imagine.

* * *

"_Farbe, is that you? I thought—Oh my god! Farbe!_"

"It's nothing, Greta… I'm fine really. It looks worse than it is."

"_Then it has to be pretty bad!_"

"Really, I'm fine. I just need to—"

"_Farbe? Farbe! Wake up! FARBE!_"

_

* * *

To Be Continued..._

**

* * *

On the next wavelength…  
**

_A Ray of Hope_


End file.
